Grants awarded for research on cross-cultural management

Dr Eddy Fang from International Business School Suzhou at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University has been awarded grants for a research project on cross-cultural management by The National Natural Science Foundation of China Research Fund for International Young Scientists.

Initially, Dr Fang ran a project titled, ‘Operationalising culture as a variable in cross-cultural management modeling: an application to innovation adoption within cultural groups’, mapping the behaviour of economic agents in China. In so doing, he sought to determine whether the scientific literature (primarily derived from research in Europe and in the US) could be applied to the Chinese market, and received a grant from the NSFC in 2016.

“As we got close to completion of the initial project, it seemed that much more could be done on this front.” said Eddy. “At the same time, we realised that there was a lot of interest from both inside and outside China in how Chinese consumers think and how they react to new products or services launched on markets.”

To extend the project he will plans to set up an international network of researchers working on understanding innovation adoption in China, which as of now includes scholars based in China, France, New Zealand, and Australia.

“As the country is currently going through a structural transformation to upgrade from a manufacturing-based to an innovation-driven economy, we need to know more about whether or not and how consumers are able to accept new products launched,” explained Dr Fang. “This research complements all the initiatives and investments that are currently contributing to this push for innovation.”

Nine applicants from Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Nanjing University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University were also awarded grants.

edited by Danny Abbasi